New York City’s Department of Transportation is seeking bids to widen the green space medians along 11 blocks of Park Ave., commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez announced Tuesday.
“We want to redefine the iconic Park Ave. as a greener, safer, and more welcoming corridor for all New Yorkers,” Rodriguez told reporters. “This will beautify this iconic street.”
The city issued a request for proposals from a list of firms Tuesday, DOT officials said, and hopes to award a contract to redesign the medians within the next six months.
Emphasis will be placed on public seating, concession spaces, public art, improved crosswalks and more greenery.
Details of the project are yet to be determined, Rodriguez said, but the final design is expected to widen the Park Ave. medians by 10-20 feet for 11 blocks, from E. 46th St. to E. 57th St.
That’s the portion of Park Ave. that sits atop the subterranean Grand Central Train Shed, which extends north underground from Grand Central Terminal — and is slated for a major overhaul by the MTA.
The more than 110-year-old structure, which holds up about a dozen blocks of Midtown East, is the subject of ongoing repair efforts by the MTA’s Construction and Development wing.
DOT officials said the work to expand the median would piggyback on the MTA’s overhaul work.
The MTA is currently repairing the shed beneath E. 47th and E. 48th Sts., a job the agency expects to finish by the end of 2026. The rest of the train-shed work — and its estimated completion date — is expected as part of the MTA’s next capital budget, due out next month.
Rodriguez and other gathered electeds lauded the plan as an effort to “put the ‘park’ back in Park Ave.”
The street’s name came about in the 1870s, when plots of grass were put alongside an open railway cut along the northern portion of then-Fourth Ave., meant to hide loud and dangerous steam locomotives.
The cut became a tunnel by the late 1880s, leading steam trains into the New York Central Railroad’s Grand Central Depot — the precursor to the current landmark terminal.
By the start of the 20th Century, the medians had grown to include seating and green space, but they were significantly reduced in 1927 to add another lane of vehicular traffic in both directions.
Currently, only the northernmost block of the Park Ave. median — between E. 96th and E. 97th Sts. — remains in that park-like configuration.